Ep 11: Badass bios for personal brands with Amber Brooks

Amber Brooks is a copywriter and brand voice strategist (ummmm hello #communityovercompetition, right?! LOVING THIS SO MUCH!!!)

Amber’s coming in to teach us about how to have a non-blah bio for your website, media kit, social media accounts, etc. that makes people LOVE you – aka Badass Bios for Personal Brands.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Amber’s website: https://amberbrooks.co/

Take the brand archetype quiz: https://brooke-logan.com/quiz/

Brand Boldly with Brooke Ep 9: 3 ways to establish visibility in your online biz with Heather Hartman

Ash Ambirge’s website: https://www.themiddlefingerproject.org/

Brand Boldly with Brooke Ep 5: Hilariously incorrect copywriting advice with Rose Womelsdorf

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Here’s a transcript of the episode

Brooke Logan:

Hello! We are live for #SpotlightSunday with Amber Brooks who is amazing and I totally butchered Heather’s intro last time, so I’m going to let you make your own introduction today because you will do a much better job of it. But Amber is awesome and let’s just start there. Let’s introduce Amber and learn about you and your business and what you do.

 

Amber Brooks:

Hey everybody, I’m Amber. I’m a brand strategist and copywriter. I help coaches, consultants and strategists with all their messaging by developing their brand voice and identity and then really compelling copy in that place they can reach more people make a big impact. One of the reasons I originally connected with Brooke is because we have the same mission and the same beliefs, right? By the way, Brooke, I came up with the top five reasons why we should be like, business besties, right? So first of all, your first name is Brooke, my last name is Brooks. So we both love branding, right? Bonus, we both both have archetype systems, right? Bonus, we both love drinks and we both like to keep it real.

 

Brooke Logan:

Heck yes! That’s awesome. I love it. I think had said in the intro in the group for you, I said hello community over competition. This is perfect because we do very similar things, but it’s awesome. It’s so good to meet other people who do similar things, too. And we’re not competition. Anybody that’s done the archetype stuff will know that your people go to you and my people will come to me and that’s just how it is and it’s awesome and I love it.

 

Amber Brooks:

Yeah, totally.

 

Brooke Logan:

Cool. So I always like to ask everybody – and I apologize, my mouse isn’t working today so I’m leaning over here looking at my notes, that’s what I’m doing – but I always like to ask everybody to share their definition of branding and I’m really interested to hear yours since that’s kind of your thing too.

 

Amber Brooks:

For me, your brand is basically the soul of your business; it’s the heart and soul of your business, right? It’s how people perceive your business and how they connect to you and why they connect to you. The things that are built into the identity of your brand are the things that align with the identity of your market as well, right? Because those things come together to build this symbiotic relationship. And that’s how I view my brands.

 

Brooke Logan:

Cool. I love it. You got some big fancy words in there, too. I love it. Okay, cool. Today then, Amber is going to teach us about how to write badass bio’s. And I know, at least for me, that’s always something that I’ve struggled with – is talking about myself and how to do that without sound like a freaking dork and also make yourself I seem an expert. I’m excited to hear what you got for us and just whenever you’re ready to dig in, let’s do it.

 

Amber Brooks:

Okay. So the thing is, people get so hung up on bios because first of all, people hate to talk about themselves. First of all, they hate talking about themselves. Second of all, they think that when they’re writing their bio, it has to be this super professional stagnate thing, right? It has to be this resume type thing. And so I think that’s what trips people up a lot. The truth of the matter is your bio should align with your brand. It shouldn’t be based on these preconceived notions of – a lot of them come from corporate mentality or the employee mindset – and we’re used to thinking in terms of that type of language and expectation that when we come into the entrepreneurial world, it’s like our minds immediately make us want to try to fit into that box. Right? So the biggest thing with writing your bio is to make sure that it fits your brand and your personality first of all.

 

Amber Brooks:

And if they had it like, very organic and appealing to your clients and your ideal client may be that corporate type professional, right? That’s quite possible. And if so, that’s fine. But for people like us and our clients, most of the time, that’s not the case. For people in your group, that’s not the case. Your bio gives your audience a glimpse of what they can expect from us and allows them to believe in us a little bit so that they want to dive in deeper and learn more, right? We need to make sure that we are appealing to people’s senses so that they do want to learn more about us and not get that corporate-y facade and just get turned off.

 

Amber Brooks:

A lot of times people don’t understand how widely they can use their bio’s too, right? Your bio can be used in all the places. It can be used on your blog. It can be used on your about page. It can be used as a media kit. It can be used in speaker profiles if you’re going to a conference or something that. It can be in your ebook. I think that people skip over it sometimes. But it’s really something that people need to focus on because you’re going to be able to use it everywhere.

 

Brooke Logan:

For sure. Well I think it’s really important, too, to just show consistency across all of those platforms, too. Just because you have an awesome bio on your website, then they go look at you somewhere else on social media or whatever, you want it to have that same feel and match and be awesome everywhere else, too. Right?

 

Amber Brooks:

Hopefullyl. TolAnd so another thing is your bio’s going to include your selling proposition right now, your competition. So the thing that you’re offering the world, the benefit you’re offering that’s going to be built into your bio and then it’s going to be everywhere and that’s what it’s going to help people understand. what is it that you have to offer that they should be paying attention to? um, by the way, if anyone has quefstions, drop them in this bread and I’ll come in later and answer any questions that always, but the bottom line is yes, definitely. So I pay attention to burrow through. I love it. It’s a little, it’s Kinda like, it’s Kinda like when you’re in their urban city and there’s that little underground hangout and find their friends and what you’ve heard of is, oh, that’s so awesome.

 

Brooke Logan:

Well too, if you’re not an Amber’s group, for sure. Check that out and we can put the, share the link in the comments for sure. But Amber’s group is awesome and growing crazy too. So whenever you want to talk about that, go for it.

 

Amber Brooks:

Yeah, we can do that. Okay. So in your bio, you want to summarize overall what’s your value prop is right? So mine is that I help entrepreneurs create that transformative growth through their voice and compelling copy. So whatever your value prop is, that should be built into your bio, right? You have your bottom line, which is your unique selling proposition or your value prop. And then you have the what, what is it that you do? Are you a digital marketer, are you a web developer? Are you brand strategist? What is it that you do? What is your specialized skill? Then I to also include the why. So what makes you so passionate about what you do? What is it that sparks that passion within you to do what you do. Because when people are looking to work with you, collaborate with you, bring you on as a guest blogger or anything that, they want to know that you aren’t just fulfilling a job, that you’re passionate about what you do. There’s a reason for it. Right?

 

Amber Brooks:

Also, building in your expertise. And when I talking about expertise, I’m not saying pack all your degrees and your certificates and things that. That’s not what we’re doing in our bio. We’re not name dropping or anything like that. And then also I to make it a little bit intriguing and then always, always, always have a call to action. And that’s like the one thing that’s missing from a lot of bios. They put the information there, it’s a little, right? But then there’s nowhere to go from it. There’s no call to action. I see your bio, but like, that’s nice, but what do I do with it? So include a call to action so that they know how to get in touch with you, how to work with you, how to get a freebie, how to sign up for your course. Exactly.

 

Amber Brooks:

I always to go over a little bit of the do’s and don’ts in your bio, too, because people get so confused about bio’s and I can tell them all all day long how to write a bio and they sit down and they look at their screen and they’re like….uhhh…. what do I do? Okay what now?

 

Amber Brooks:

Okay. So do’s. You do put your personality in. You are your brand. We say this all the time. Put that personality in there. That’s something you know, you guys know Brooke is all in, right? She’s all in her brand and you know exactly what you get when you see her on Facebook, Instagram, blog. You know what you’re getting, right? So put that personality in there. That’s what makes me connect to Brooke. That’s what’s going to help people connect you guys. So don’t be scared to put yourself out there. And that fear is really what holds a lot of people back.

 

Brooke Logan:

Amen!

 

Amber Brooks:

Yes! Stop holding back! Don’t filter, people!

 

Amber Brooks:

Okay, so also include things that are going to strengthen your positioning. So you know, if you have experience as an interior designer and you are now doing digital marketing for interior designers, that’s going to be relevant, right? Use language that’s very natural to you. Don’t, you know, force it. So if you’re someone whose mouth is conservative in person and you think it feels cool to go online and like, curse first more than usual or whatever, people are going to sense that lack of authenticity a mile away. So don’t force it. Be natural. And it’s funny, but we see it all the time. Right? We see that sort of, fake authenticity all day long. It’s just so easy to spot.

 

Brooke Logan:

Yeah, no, I was just going to say, I don’t know if you watched Heather’s #SpotlightSunday last week about being on live video and showing up, but I think that, at least for me, that has helped my business a lot. To just kind of get out of your head and just be yourself. Because when you’re on live you’re like, welp this is it. There’s no time to prepare or try to be fake or be anything else. So that’s at least helped me a lot, because I did come from that corporate environment where it’s you have to be all professional and it took me a while to get out of that mode. It’s been really helpful to just be me. It’s just so much easier once you can kind of get past that and figure it out.

 

Amber Brooks:

You know, I’m so glad you brought that up because people do think that they have to put that corporate, professional face on with their bio. And you don’t. I freaking loved her Spotlight. It was like, spot on. I was like, oh my God, you’re calling out all the things. When I came on the entrepreneurial space, I wouldn’t do live. I wouldn’t even record myself speaking, not even without video. It was hard for me to even get on a client call. Those things totally freaked me out. But it is what it is. You gotta put yourself out there and you have to be yourself. She has some really good tips to break through those boundaries, too. I would probably go back and watch that like, 10 more times. Because I’m still like…

 

Brooke Logan:

It was so good!!

 

Amber Brooks:

Okay, I thought I was there, Heather, but obviously I need to step it up some more. Yeah. Okay. So be yourself. And with the visibility and talking about being yourself, it’s important, too, to try and make your introduction to people a lot of times. And think about it you’re at a networking event. When you’re at a networking event, people are going to ask you what you do, and what’s your story, and what’s your experience, right?

 

Amber Brooks:

But the people online aren’t necessarily going to get that chance to ask you in person. So your bio is that introduction? If you could just think of it that. If you’re someone who maybe is more comfortable talking in person, then that might help you write your bio. The other thing I would say is just be consistent. Whatever bio that you have built, and then modify it for each platform. So you know Instagram only gives you unlimited number of characters, right? You’re going to need to make it more concise and chunk it down for the platform. But it’s still needs to align with your full bio on your website. Right?

 

Brooke Logan:

Yeah. So what do you recommend then when you’re narrowing it down? What do you feel like are the most important parts to leave in? You had mentioned including your why and your what and your personality and all that stuff. So how do you go about narrowing it down and picking out the important parts?

 

Amber Brooks:

The big three are audience, the benefit, and the what you do. I do X for Y and you’ll get Z. Those are the big ones. Because I want to know if you’re speaking to me, I want to know what I’m going to get out of it. Right? What’s in it for me? Everyone wants to know what’s in it for me? I don’t really care about you, what are you gonna do for me?

 

Brooke Logan:

Exactly. Hey Heather! Heather’s giving us a million hearts right now!

 

Amber Brooks:

Hey Heather! I do have some don’t’s, though. Just don’t be overly formal. There is a difference between being professional and formal. You can be professional without being formal. You can be business casual. You can be yourself without keeping it sterile and unapproachable. Using a lot of jargon – that just turns people off. Psychobabble, yeah. Don’t do it. You also don’t, I think I mentioned this earlier, but you don’t want to list out every degree, award, certificate, trophy, participation trophy. Don’t want to do that. Momma might care about that, but the people who want to hire you, not so much.

 

Amber Brooks:

Don’t forget the call to action. You want to send them somewhere once they’ve read a little bit about you and they want to know what the next step is. Then I guess the next biggest one is the passive voice. And this is something that confuses a lot of people. It’s the difference between active and passive voice. Passive voice is like when you talk about some things being done to you. Active voice is talking about what you’re doing. Someone might say, if you’re interested in my services, you can call me – that’s passive, right? Giving people more of an option, right? So instead you would want to say something like, sign up for my course, and then drop the link. You’re telling them what to do.

 

Brooke Logan:

I love that. That’s something that a lot of people don’t talk about.

 

Amber Brooks:

So are there any questions? I just want to take a pause to see if there’s any questions.

 

Brooke Logan:

We’ve got some comments. So let me look through here. Heather says, hi. Tamera says hi. Tammy, LaMorla. Hi everyone! Tamera says benefits are huge and she has trouble with with coach talk. So jargon and stuff like that I’m guessing is what you mean Tamera? That is something that’s very tricky to overcome. I feel it takes practice. Amber said at the beginning, too, just speaking to your audience – that ideal client research. I probably have beat it over everyone’s head by this point, but it is so important to know who you’re talking to and just using the words that they “get” and they understand. So that helps.

 

Brooke Logan:

Heather and Tamera are having a heart war! Giving us a million hearts. Yay!!

 

Amber Brooks:

I’m glad you brought that up. That’s such a big pet peeve for me. A lot of people in the first couple of years in business say, I don’t need market research! Right? And just blow it off. Right? People. That’s THE one thing you need. If you do nothing else, please, do that. Know your audience.

 

Brooke Logan:

That’s my number one thing, too!

 

Amber Brooks:

I’m so glad you brought that up.

 

Brooke Logan:

Or I’ll hear all the time stuff like, I work with women between 20 and 50. And like, no… That’s not enough. That’s not specific enough.

 

Amber Brooks:

Right. So if you’re having a hard time standing out, 9 times out of 10 it’s because you don’t know your audience, right? You don’t know how to speak to them because you don’t know who they are. If you look at someone like – I love to use her as an example, Ash Ambirge. We all love Ash. She knows exactly who her audience is, who they aren’t, right? And she attracts the right people and then repels the wrong people. That’s because she knows her audience. She spent an enormous amount of time getting to know them and can speak directly to them.

 

Brooke Logan:

She’s such a good example.

 

Amber Brooks:

Yes. That’s where we met, is it not? I believe that’s where we met.

 

Brooke Logan:

Yep, in her group.

 

Amber Brooks:

Okay. Another question I get often, which I haven’t heard yet in your group is point of view. How to I speak – in what point of view do I speak from? In your bio, you want to speak in the first person. And what that means is you’re using I, right? Not – I wouldn’t say in my bio on my website, Amber is a brand strategist and copywriter. I am a service provider. I am my brand. Even though I’m moving to the agency model right now, I’m still the head of my brand. Everything is based around services that I offer. So I’m going to use first person “I” – now if, which I don’t think your audience again is – but if you’re running a bigger agency where it’s run by a board, then at that point where would use something like “we.” But I don’t think that’s either one of our audiences or the people in your group. So in first person. And don’t talk about yourself in the third person, with your name, or like he/she, that kind of thing. It’s just weird.

 

Brooke Logan:

I agree. It’s weird. I’ve had that conversation with clients a million times. It just feels awkward. Just say it. Just say what you’re going to say.

 

Amber Brooks:

And you know what? I think that’s because a lot of people feel comfortable talking about themselves. They’ll have this innate lack of confidence. Even the most competent people have some form of insecurity. But at the same time, you don’t want to overuse that I pronoun, either. You don’t want to make a conversation all about you. Like, Hey, I’m here and I’m putting myself in the spotlight and it’s all about me. It’s not, it’s about your ideal clients needs. So keep the ”I’s” there, but to a minimum. And if all else fails, write everything you need to write and then edit later. If you’re really feeling stuck and you feel like – I think the other thing is, people get in front of the keyboard and they think they have to get it right and perfect. And you don’t. Just get it down, edit it, it’s going to be fine. You just have to start typing the words out.

 

Brooke Logan:

Yeah. When Rose was on here, we talked about doing just a shitty first draft and just get it out and then go back and edit.

 

Amber Brooks:

Yes, exactly. I love Rose, too. You have some really great people in this group. It’s so exciting.

 

Brooke Logan:

I know! I’m so excited!

 

Amber Brooks:

It’s awesome. So I have a download on my website that has all of the steps that we’ve gone through and it also has a template. If you are that personal brand and you need to use the I pronoun, it hasn’t template for you to use there. And then if you have a bigger business where you need to use a second person’s pronoun, then that’s there. So I will post a link to that in the thread so people can download that.

 

Brooke Logan:

Yep. Right now it’s over in the events.

 

Amber Brooks:

And if there are any questions, I am happy to answer them.

 

Amber Brooks:

Yeah, let’s scroll back through here. Heather says the active voice is important. Yes, yes. Tamera says, I was told to take it five levels deep. Like redheads with freckles that have blue eyes and live in California. Okay, so your ideal client, five levels deep. I’ve never heard the five levels thing, but definitely be very, very specific when you’re doing that research. Like, what keeps them up at night? What do they actually want? And what words did they use? So I don’t know if freckles will help you, like if you’re selling makeup or something, then freckles, that would be good to know. But just keep in mind what you need to know for your ideal client. And I do – when I’m going through it with my clients. I don’t know what you do Amber, if you want to tell us, but I like to get super specific for everything that’s relevant and pretend it’s to one person and give them a name. And find a stock photo that looks them. You’re talking to that person. So I don’t know if you want to share what your ideal client process looks like? it’s so important.

 

Amber Brooks:

I do a lot of paid research. I do surveys, interviews, mining groups, mining like, Amazon, and that kind of thing if it’s appropriate. And for my business, I have different ICA’s. So I have my done for you clients, who I am working deeply one on one with. I have my startup clients who I’m teaching things to. And then I actually have a couple of other ICA’s that are brewing right now which I’m getting ready to launch. So what I do is, I mine all of the research, put it together, and then I build a persona for each target segment. And I get specific like you do, I gave him a name. I build them a life, right? So it’s like a little Sim. Do you remember Sims?

 

Brooke Logan:

Yes!!!

 

Amber Brooks:

They’re crazy. So I build them a life and I just drive those pains home and I list out the values that are important to them and what exactly they need. Lay it all out. And everything I do within the different segment, I’m speaking directly to that persona.

 

Brooke Logan:

Yes. Yes, yes.

 

Amber Brooks:

I’ve never heard the five deep thing, either. But it sounds basically like that. Yeah.

 

Brooke Logan:

Yeah, Yup, Yup, Yup, Yup. Heather says you need to know your ideal clients inner monologue. Yup. Yep. Cool.

 

Amber Brooks:

Yes.

 

Brooke Logan:

So if anyone has any more questions, now the time guys. And then as always, if you have questions later, like during the replay, put them in there, we’ll go back and answer them.

 

Amber Brooks:

Yup.

 

Brooke Logan:

Amber’s freebie is over in the events tab, but as soon as we get off here, I’ll also put it in the comments of this video so it’s easy to find. Check out her stuff. It’s awesome. And your group, your group is awesome, too if you want to talk about that for a second! Because I know you do all kinds of cool stuff in there.

 

Amber Brooks:

Aw. Yeah. I run The Brandividuation Project. It’s a mouthful! Basically, because what I do is I help individuate brands, right? I help them stand out. So for my one on one clients, that’s what I do. I pull them out of their head and all of their inner magic, put it out there. And so for my group, it’s like, people who are in the first couple of years of business who aren’t quite ready for that big jump. But they still need to be growing, and evolving, and figuring it out. I don’t believe that people who are just starting should be investing thousands of dollars in websites and copy and things like that. Because you’re evolving. It’s going to change very quickly within the first year or two. So what I do in that group is we talk a lot about moving beyond your circumstances and not allowing your circumstances to dictate your destiny. And figuring out how exactly you are able to put yourself into your brand before you get to the point where your brand becomes a mess, right? We do a lot of trainings, workshops, I run contests, just all kinds of craziness. I’m happy to have anyone join and it’s like a big family over there. I love everybody there.

 

Brooke Logan:

Yes, it’s awesome. You guys should join. Cool. Well that looks all of the questions we have. People like it! We’re getting good feedback and so many hearts!!! I love all the hearts! So go join Amber’s group, download her thing, both are awesome. And I will be back on Thursday, maybe sooner, I don’t know for sure yet. Definitely Thursday though. And that’s all we got for you today. So thank you again, everybody who came live.

 

Amber Brooks:

Thank you so much Brooke!

 

Brooke Logan:

I’m so happy to have everyone! And thank you, Amber! You were so awesome. I know bios are, like you said at the beginning, it’s terrifying for people to talk about themselves. It’s so hard. This was so awesome. Thank you so much.

 

Amber Brooks:

Thank you, Brooke, for having me!

 

Brooke Logan:

Bye!

 

Amber Brooks:

Bye!

 

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Hey, I’m Brooke!

I’m a Creator archetype, INTJ, and music snob. I will fight you if you try to convince me that a MacBook is an instrument. It’s not.

But as far as this whole business thang goes… I’m basically a weird mix of creative-big-picture-thinker and analytical strategery all rolled into one.

I can help you use your unique personality to stand out BOLDLY online and attract your ideal clients like a freakin’ magnet – just by being YOU.


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